Make My Way

Chapter Six

Aria's POV

I tapped my hands excitedly on my leg, not paying attention to my zero hour jazz band class (it starts before the rest of the school day). I needed to talk to Stella. When I texted her on Sunday about Neil's house, she didn't even respond. I couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

After we finished playing, I packed up my trumpet and walked to her locker in an attempt to find her. When there was two minutes left before class started, I gave up and opened my own locker.

I sat down in my desk in the English classroom and the bell rang. Stella's seat in front of me was still empty. I took out my binder and slipped my part of the story out of my folder. My group had written a fantasy story about animals and all that stuff. Let's just say that Juan was pretty influential.

Across the room, I saw Neil, staring at Stella's empty seat. He looked sad and disappointed at the same time. Somehow, I got the feeling he wasn't disappointed because of the paper.

Mrs. Green started talking and seemed to have forgotten about the paper. About ten minutes into class, Stella walked in the door. She apologized to the Teacher and sat down.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"I overslept," she responded under her breath.

"You didn't respond to any of my texts or snaps!" I reminded her.

She cringed, "Oh yeah, sorry. My phone died and I didn't have time to charge it, well, I forgot to." I sighed and made a mental note to ask her about her day with Neil later.

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In band, I was reminded that tonight we had our first home football game and we had to play pep-band for it. There were several cheerleaders and football players in band so they had to sit there without playing during practice because our director wanted to hear how it sounded. We played through songs like "All the Small Things," "Brown Eyed Girl," "Hey Baby," "All of the Lights", and a lot more.

Most of my friends wouldn't even be at pep-band because Stella and Aurora were cheerleaders and Willow always had dance when we played. I missed it for dance every once and a while, but my studio didn't start class for another week.

I drummed my fingers on the brass of my mellophone while the trumpets ran through a section of a song. When the entire band played together again I sighed and raised my hand on in annoyance. She had forgotten about me again. "Um, what about me?" I asked.

"Oh sorry Aria," she glanced down at the score for the song, "Looks like you have a completely different part than everyone else. You'll get it."

Being the only French horn player for concert band was okay sometimes but not others. I never tried out for solos, I got them automatically. A lot of times when she ran through parts in individual sections, I played with other instruments, but when we ran through their part did she ask me to play too? Nope. About three and a half years ago, I gave up waiting for her to tell me to play and just played with another part of I knew I was supposed to.

At the end of class, when I was packed up I want to stand by the door. I felt a hand on my head from somewhere behind me. "Hello, Joshua," I said without turning. When I did turn, I saw Stella walking to join me. When she was close enough, Josh put his other hand on her head. We sigh and laugh as he takes his hands down.

He turned to Stella, "Hey, Mom." Stella just rolled her eyes. Then he looked at me, "Do I know you?"

I pretended to look thoughtful for a moment before saying, "No, no you don't."

"Huh."

Josh and Stella were both percussionists and, although Josh was a year older, he had been calling Stella 'Mother' since our freshman year.  I shook my head at them and laughed. I was about to say something to Josh when the bell rang. We all power walked out the door and to our lockers so that we couldn't be caught running by the strict science teacher.

I went to my science class and Stella went to her math, but not without making sure to tell me to get the '411' on Neil, who was in my class. I guess that if she couldn't stalk him, she wanted to make sure I did.

He didn't do much. He just kept flip this eraser and then stacking things on top of it and getting them to balance. Stella would probably find that interesting. I'd tell her at lunch.

Choir was just as bad as the last week. Adrian had kept rocking my chair and deliberately annoying me. I ignored him for the most part but it was harder than you might think.

When lunch finally came around, I almost screamed with excitement and anticipation. I cornered Stella and we got our trays together and sat down. I stared her down while she told me every detail of her time with Neil. I almost slapped her to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. I forced her to give me his snapchat and told her I'd try to the best of my ability that they'd go to homecoming together.

We dumped our trays and went into the French room. I woke up my phone and scrolled through my notifications. One in particular caught my eye. I almost groaned audibly. It was a snap from Adrian. I opened it reluctantly and saw a picture of the back of my head while I was talking to Stella in the cafeteria. I took a quick picture of my doing my signature death glare and typed, stalker.

Then, I sent a quick picture of Stella looking down at her phone to Neil and said, Hey, it's Aria, just to test the waters and see if he was on his phone.

A reply came back quickly. Hey. How's Stella?

Awwww. They're so cute. Pretty good. She had fun this weekend.

So did I. How were they so freaking perfect for each other?!

You going to homecoming? I asked.

Maybe. Depends on who else is.

Stella has to since she's a cheerleader ;)

Well then, I think the odds just went up.

I grinned in Stella's direction. She was going to freak.